Book of the Shadows, Third Moon Saga, Book I - Blood and Water
by DaCosta Rosencraft
Summary: A new story for the Book of the Shadows series. Nearly two centuries after monsters were supposedly wiped from the world, a young man gets the rude awakening to the lie of all time, and must now manage his uncomfortable placement in a monster's world.
1. Foreword

**Foreword**

This is the initial story of the Third Moon Saga. It is the seventh saga that I have begun writing in the Book of the Shadows series.

The Third Moon Saga is an intriguing story for me. I say that because, despite the fact that it is set as one of the main sagas, I have yet to devise any instance of a member of the Two-Six appearing, much less for them to be a centrally important figure. Being that the individual sagas are supposed to centrally tell tales of the Two-Six, that is a bit of a problem right now. That being said, the story of the saga is too large for a simple side-story. The assortment of characters isn't as verbose as some other stories I've written, but still manages to bring together a number of different series. I do take a few literary liberties with some of those characters, but that should already be understood from the other stories.

This story lacks a certain level of complication intrinsic in others, but it makes up for that with quality. It will be a fun story, not necessarily funny, and perhaps will reflect a slightly more mature story in general. I hope you enjoy this, Book of the Shadows, Third Moon Saga, Book One – Blood & Water.

- DaCosta Rosencraft

Saturday, June 29, 2013

6:28 PM


	2. Chapter 1 - Rehydration

**Chapter 1: Rehydration**

"Hey, I heard there was a monster sighting a couple towns over,"

"No way, that's gotta be some kinda joke. Everyone knows monsters don't exist anymore,"

"Yeah, that war wiped them all out, so someone's just makin' up stories,"

"Yeah, but I heard that there might've been some who escaped and've been hiding all this time,"

"Nah, I doubt that's even possible. I mean, wouldn't there'd be like a ton of reports and stuff by now?"

"I got a friend out there. His parents are gonna be outta town this weekend. Why don't we go and check it out?"

"Cool, we'll make it a party,"

Alexander Kuroshiki was a young man fully certain of where he was going in life. He had a plan for his future, and thought he knew plenty about the world around him. Alexander lives in a world where monsters and magic are not myth, but reality. Or rather, it used to be reality. About a hundred fifty years ago, there was a war waged between humans and monsters. No one remembers how or why the war started, but when it was over, there were supposedly no more monsters left.

Alexander, like almost everyone you might find, believes in that reality. Things like monsters were far from his mind when he was ready to begin high school. He had no real interest in the topic.

For now Alexander had other things to think about than listening to the idle chit-chat of a couple of kids outside of school. It was his first day of high school, in his new school, in a new town.

It wasn't a completely new town for him. After all, he was born here. He lived here until he was about seven years old. His parents moved around a lot. The seven years he stayed here were probably the most time they'd spent in a single place. Alex had always gone with them. But he wanted something different with the start of high school. He was tired of the constant shifting about. It'd been hard to even think too much about his future. He wanted the chance to settle down at least through high school and live a more normal lifestyle.

Normal is of course relative. He knew that all too well already. He had a girlfriend whose life, partly because of him, was a bit less than normal. She was also a major part of why he wanted to settle in place for a bit. His girlfriend traveled a lot too, but as it had been they could only see each other whenever their paths happened to cross. He was hoping that if one of them could at least be somewhat sedentary they'd be able to see each other more often.

This first day of school also happened to be his first day back in town. He was going to be living on his own, an exciting prospect for a fifteen year old. He had a decent sized one-bedroom apartment for himself that his parents were going to be paying for. They were also going to be sending him money every month. Alex was hoping he could find a part-time job to help supplement his income a little.

This first day, however, he was just hoping to get up to speed. Even though he lived here until he was seven, the only memory of the area he had was a house that wasn't even his. It was an old house even in his memory, different – older – in style from any of the others in the town, which is probably why it stood out in his mind out of everything. He was going to need some time to get reacquainted. He didn't really know anyone in town, though his girlfriend's parents were in the next town over. Even in walking the streets there were few things that sparked back up in his memory of living here.

Alex took off from school right away at the end of his first day. He had no one really to stand around and chat with, and he had boxes of stuff to unpack at his apartment. He was glad they only had opening ceremonies today so it would give him plenty of time to get his apartment straightened out. He was hoping to get through with as much of the unpacking as he could in one go before it got lost in trying to keep up with normal school activities.

It wasn't a long ways from the apartment to school, so Alexander planned to walk each day. He was thinking that if it came to it he might get a bike and ride that to school, supposing his own malaise made it too much a chore to wake up early enough to make the walk.

As he walked home he found himself deviating just slightly from the path he had planned. It didn't really take him out of his way, but it wasn't necessarily the most direct route. What it was, was the route that established the only connection he had in his mind to this city.

It was an old house, sitting alone on its block. The structure was definitely old, but not terribly run down as one would expect an unlived in house to be. It was certainly unlived in. He passed by on the way to school that morning. A neighbor a block away from this house noticed Alex staring at the place but didn't quite recognize Alex. According to the neighbor no one had lived in the house for more than fifteen years, and that as long as most residents of the area can remember no one has lived there, and there had been no houses on the block with that house. Even at the time when he would have been a kid in this area, the neighbor notes that most of the other houses around there would have been vacant.

Alex didn't think too much of it. When he first talked to his parents about coming here and they noted it was where he was born and lived for seven years of his life, he didn't doubt them, but did note to himself how little he recalled. That house was the only thing, and even then his memories of it were fuzzy at best. He kind of felt it must have been a place he visited or could see from someone else's house that he visited and played at. But hearing that the closest neighboring house was at least a block away didn't exactly sync with those blurred memories.

Walking by the house that morning, Alex felt an odd feeling. It didn't really trigger any new memories, but a change in perspective. He thought the place was one where he had a good time as a kid, but right then he felt trepidation, almost fear, looking at it. He wanted to pass by it again on his way home to see if he would get that same feeling, and sure enough as he was walking by now he had that same feeling. In his mind it still stood out as a place he came to often enough that he would remember it more so than even the place he used to live, but just being near it now he didn't have that nostalgia or joy.

From what he heard from the neighbor most people in the town stay away from the house. Even the local rabble-rousers didn't go near the place, which was somewhat odd since it was one of those houses you imagined someone would have made a hangout for their gang of misfit friends or a secret base for the younger kids. Alex wondered himself if that must have been what it was about for him when he was a kid here – that he and some other kids in the neighborhood made the old place their secret base.

If not for how little else of the area he remembered, Alex wouldn't have cared much about the area in the least. He was only really interested because of the fact that it was the only place in his memories. He felt compelled to see the place in the hopes of rekindling those subdued memories, for whatever they were worth.

It was a desire that seemed for now destined to be unfulfilled. The old house with some of its windows boarded up, overgrown yard, broken walkway and driveway, and generally dirty exterior, wasn't firing up any of his synapses.

Alex had actually arrived in town last night. It was too late for him to do much, so all he did was unpack some of his clothes and whatever he needed for school. He could only sigh when he entered his apartment and looked at the stacks of boxes lined up awaiting his attention. All he could do was put his head down and get to it. For at least three years this was going to be his home, so he wanted to be comfortable as he could as soon as possible.

He plowed through as quickly as he could, taking great care to set things up just the way he wanted. He was so caught up in what he was doing he didn't even realize when the sun had set. In fact, it was already getting close to eight o'clock. He hadn't had anything at all to eat since breakfast that morning. In the excitement he had bubbling in his gut, he didn't even really feel all that hungry.

It was too late for Alex to make anything. He did know how to cook; nothing fancy or sophisticated, but enough to keep himself fed. Unfortunately he hadn't had time to stock up on food stuffs so his kitchen fridge and pantry was fairly bare. Tonight's dinner was going to have to be something from the store.

The closest store was a small market approximately halfway between the apartment and the school. Unlike the route to school, however, this one did pass right by that old house. He wasn't really thinking about that anymore right now though. He needed to get there and back home so he could eat. Then he was planning on calling his folks to let them know he was settling in okay.

He rushed on over to the store. The town where he was living was on the edges of a much bigger and active city. You could see the tall skyscrapers from almost anywhere in the town, and his apartment was actually closer to the city than the school was. Being outside the city this area had a much more rural feel than it was probably due. Nevertheless that meant that most of the shops and places like that closed relatively early. Alex was lucky to have made it just before the store was closing. He didn't know what he would have done if he arrived and it was already closed – most likely stuck with an empty stomach until morning.

Alex managed to pick up a couple dinner plates and a lunch set, as well as some sandwiches he could eat in the mornings. His folks were never too big on nutrition so he knew there wouldn't be any fuss if he told them that was all he was eating so long as he was eating enough of it. He personally didn't much like eating a ton of junk and processed food, which is partly how he ended up learning a little about how to cook for himself. It was one of his mother's requirements he learn to cook if he was planning on living on his own.

Just as the road there to the store took him by that house, so too did the road back home. It was starting to ink into his mind that this house seemed more like it was haunting him than anything else. He was seriously starting to think if there was some other route he could take to start avoiding it. He at least knew that he could avoid it to and from school, but if this store was to become his regular store, he wasn't so sure he wanted to keep passing by this house on the way all the time. As a trigger of his forgotten past in this town it had failed so there was no longer much meaning in seeing such a depressing looking place day after day.

The street was rather desolate at night past this house. The broken concrete and bits of liter were the obvious signs of neglect. It was amazing that the streetlamps still worked. As if to fulfill his expectations, they started flickering just as he was about to pass by in front of the house. He started wondering to himself if he'd been listening to too many stories from the rest at school. He started to think the house would make a suitable hangout for ghosts or monsters like in one of those movies. For a moment he's sure he sees a light moving in the house through the window, quickly convincing himself he was only imagining it, or had only seen a car's headlights reflecting.

A cold breeze made Alex shiver. He thought it strange at first, considering it was already supposed to be spring, but he didn't know much about the weather in this area. He had heard that it sometimes could get pretty chilly.

Alex heard a strange noise behind him and looked back the way he came. He can't immediately see anything, but several of the streetlamps finally just flickered out.

Alex figured he shouldn't waste too much time standing around looking at nothing. It probably wasn't a good idea to try walking these streets in the dark. As he turned back around and restarted for home, he froze in his tracks.

There was ooze rising up from the ground ahead of him. It looked like some kind of sewage seeping up from a broken pipe. Not wanting to venture through it, he turned to his right, thinking he'd take a side road around. When he turned, there was more of the dark ooze. But it wasn't just an ineffable mass. It began to take on a form. It wasn't necessarily much more of an identifiable form, but it certainly had some form to it.

There were two eyes to each blob; two round discs the size of golf balls, solid glowing yellow with no distinguishable inner construction or definition. Their bodies stood about five feet tall once they fully formed. They were translucent, as though you slowed down time to look through a raindrop up close. But within their translucent body were darker thin masses, almost like blood vessels or some kind of neural network, emanating from the eyes and terminating at various spots around the blob structure.

It took Alex only a couple seconds to register these details. In that time he saw one, two, five, twelve, dozens of the – things – rise up from the ground and start sloshing their bodies towards him. Their movement was sloppy and slow, tossing their mass forward, their eyes dropping into the spilt projection, forming back up to full height, and repeating.

The blobs were slow, enough so that he could easily run away if not for one issue.

He had nowhere to run.

It didn't take much more than seeing them moving his way for Alex to resolve that he needed to get away from them. His path forward, toward his apartment, was a no go. They had first appeared in that direction and had already taken up the entire street in that direction. His path to his right was the same, and more were coming up behind him. Alex felt the fear of realizing he was already surrounded.

But there was the house.

The old house was to his left. It was the only place thus far that didn't have any of the ooze creatures.

Alex didn't have time to think about what was going on. Whatever the strange blobs were, he didn't think it made any sense to risk getting near to them. He wasn't even going to waste time trying to think if they meant him any harm. With dozens of them swarming now, he didn't have a whole lot of time to make a decision.

Alex had thought about going inside the old house earlier that day when he passed by on the way home. His memories of the house were all of its exterior, none of the inside. He considered that seeing inside might be a good way of getting back the memories he'd apparently lost, but this wasn't the situation he imagined it would be under.

The old house, he thought, likely had a back door, or at least a window. The house was the only place without any of the blobs, so it was the only direction left to go to get away from them. He hoped that at the very least it would provide some buffer against them, though considering they seemed to simply seep up from the ground, it was mostly wishful thinking on his part.

Alex hadn't even stopped to consider whether he would be able to get through the front door, somewhere in the back of his mind figuring he would just break it down if it came to that. Just getting inside was so much of a priority the thought only caught up after he was already inside, the door not actually having a lock anymore to begin with.

He didn't bother to look back to see if the blobs were following him. It didn't really matter so long as he could escape. He started to peer about the place. There wasn't much light to be had at all, making it difficult to make out what the house looked like. He went to his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He only realized when doing so that he'd dropped everything he picked up at the store, and his wallet, when he was running away. He wasn't about to go back and get them though, so it was a lost cause for now.

The light of the phone's screen wasn't particularly bright, but it at least gave him enough illumination to see where he was going. The inside of this house looked about as bad as the outside. It clearly hadn't had any residents for some time, possibly a lot longer than the almost ten years since he lived in this town. The floor creaked loudly with each step, and the slightest breeze was like a great gust rattling the entire structure. There was a hole in the roof, probably from water damage over the years.

The light of the phone offered so little light Alex couldn't clearly see more than a few inches ahead of him, much less the other side of the room to start looking for a way to the back of the house. Not seeing any windows, and judging from how the building looked from the outside, there was probably at least one more room between where he was and the back side of the house. All he could do for now was ease his way forward as quickly as he could. For now he was just hoping this place was really as abandoned as it was supposed to be, and that the things outside wouldn't come in after him.

Suddenly Alex took a wrong step. The rotted floor gave way beneath him and he fell. He reached out as he was falling, trying to grab hold of anything he could to keep from falling all the way through. His grip only lasted a few seconds before the piece of floor he was trying to hold on to also broke away.

Alex landed poorly. He didn't think it was broken, but he had definitely badly injured his left leg, having scraped both legs when the floor broke originally. He further felt his leg hit something fairly solid when he fell, before he hit the ground. His right hand was very sore. He was sure he had at least a couple broken chips of wood stuck in his hand from when he was trying to grab hold of the floor. His left arm wasn't much better off, it like his legs having scraped the jagged pieces of floor during his descent.

It was rather obvious that this place was a basement. It was a little odd, Alex thought angrily, that there was a basement since he knew already that it wasn't normally the case that houses in this part of the country had basements. He cursed his seemingly atrocious luck to first encounter this absurd situation, and to then have to flee to some rundown house that just happened to be so old and rotting that the floor broke through to a basement that houses normally didn't have. If he didn't know any better he would have thought someone was conspiring against him.

This was no time to be sulking over his fortunes, he thought a bit as he pulled himself to his feet. His leg was definitely in rough shape, in too much pain for him to place much of his weight on it. The pain was good, though, since it meant at least that he wasn't in immediate danger of losing the limb. There was a small bit of light entering this basement. There was a small window on the far side of the room, which at the moment was the only source of light he had given that his phone was now out of sight, probably broken on the floor somewhere.

As he felt around to stand up, Alex found himself grasping on to something solid. It was fairly high off the ground, somewhere about shoulder height. He couldn't tell what it was, but he judged it to be relatively large and sturdy. Whatever it was he used it as a brace to get his balance, leaning against it for a moment.

Laboriously he dragged himself over to the small window. It was probably only about three or four feet wide and maybe two feet tall, but it sat just barely high enough for him to be unable to peek out. He staggered to the window, feeling a little woozy as he tried to walk. He started to think about if he hit his head, wondering if he might have a concussion.

As he gets close to the window, Alexander hears a sound. It causes him to tense up a little, which ramps up the nauseous feeling and the growing headache he has. He makes it to the window and turns around, leaning back against the wall. There is some light shining into the basement from the window. More than what he was getting from his phone before, it is enough to illuminate a good portion of the area.

With his head starting to spin, the poor lighting, and the general fact that it is not something he would otherwise be expecting to see, Alexander has a difficult time at first realizing what it is he is looking at. He gets a little angry, the sound he hears distracting him. When his brain is finally able to process what his eyes are seeing and link it with his memories, he isn't any more certain he is seeing what he believes he is seeing.

The object which he hit in his fall, and subsequently used as a crutch to get up from the basement floor, was a coffin seated atop a large table. The sound he heard was the creaking of its lid as it was opening up. Alex couldn't think. He was too dizzy to try to make sense of why there was a coffin there, or why it was opening.

A hand reached up slowly over the side of the coffin, holding it like a handrail. The fingers looked to be rather slender, a little long, but… normal. He could hear the sound of someone shifting about, the soft, dull sound of fabric rubbing against fabric or skin.

He saw a figure sit up, but he couldn't immediately make out any details. He thought he blinked his eyes as an automatic response to trying to gather enough light to his retinas to make out what he was seeing. But he thought he surely must have passed out for a second or two, because the figure was no longer in the coffin but standing beside it.

He could see a little better now. The figure was that of what seemed to be a young woman. She was wearing a red dress that came down to her shins. She was barefooted. She had long hair, down to the small of her back. He could only see her face briefly as she turned away from his line of sight to focus her attention elsewhere.

Alexander watched the figure raise her hand up to the side of the coffin. She looked up, Alexander realizing that she was probably standing under the hole from upstairs that he fell through. She looked back down at the casket and briefly passed her hand along the top edge. She slowly raised that hand up to her head as she turned to the side slightly. He could see her stick her tongue out and lick her fingers.

Alexander's first thought was to question why she would lick her hand that had just wiped across what had to be a dusty, dirty coffin. All the dust from the debris of the broken floor had to have been all over the casket. It was only after trying to reason what would possess her to do such a disgusting thing he came to realize something more disturbing. The spot she touched, he thought, more than likely was the spot where he'd leaned up against the casket with his bloody arm. That means that what the girl had just placed in her moth wasn't dust, as odd as that would have been, but blood… his blood.

Alex suddenly realized the girl was walking towards him. Her footsteps were light and graceful. They made no sound as she stepped across the floor.

As he tried to figure out if there was a reason for her to do what she did, he noticed for the first time her eyes. He wasn't sure if he had ever noticed it before, enough so that he might have sworn that he did not, but at the moment now as she was approaching him, he could see her eyes, shallow as if sleepy, glowing red.

Like a warning light, the red of the girl's eyes struck home with Alex. His eyes started to dart around looking for an exit. It was difficult to see the other side of the basement in this darkness, but he thought he could make out stairs in the far left corner of the space.

His head was throbbing. It felt like he was drowning in molasses. The girl who exited the coffin, to him, seemed more threatening than the blobs he ran from outside in the first place. He started to wonder if he was caught in someone's prank. He remembered how there were those two kids at school talking about some monster sighting in a city not too far away. Maybe someone set this all up as a joke, and he stumbled into it.

Whether this was a joke or not, Alexander had no choice but to let things play out. He had thought about running to the stairs, but he couldn't get himself to move. At first it was an intentional and conscious effort by him that every time he scanned the room for an exit he looked back at the girl. But he soon realized it was involuntary.

The girl walked towards Alex at a slow pace. He tried to back up, having forgotten that he was already up against the wall. He managed to turn his head back, as if trying to convince himself he still had some room to retreat, only to reconfirm that there was a solid wall there.

When he turned back face forward, the girl was already right in front of him. She reached her hands up, her long slender fingers slowly clasping one by one on the side of his head. She brought her face closer to his, her cool breath wafting over him. Her eyes seemed to almost sparkle the closer she came, those same eyes laser focused on him.

Alex could only think that she was trying to kiss him. It didn't make sense to him, but he couldn't think what else it could be. It was an eerie feeling. He wondered if he knew her, if she saw him at school or something like that. The fact that she emerged from a coffin notwithstanding, she was a relatively attractive young woman. He found himself thinking all of these things about it being a game, how he should play along, how he had to know this young woman. Nothing about this was making much sense, but he didn't seem to think straight.

Just as the girl was only an inch from his face, he pushed her away.

From start to finish this didn't seem right. For a joke this was too much for anyone, let alone the fact that he knew no one around this town well enough that they would even play any sort of joke on him. For his first day in this town, everything had seemed to be going so well, and went downhill very quickly. He didn't know what those blobs were, and he didn't know who this person was. She was too strange for him to ignore that fact. She did nothing overtly threatening, yet he felt a deep sinking feeling in his gut having her so close.

Pushing her away, Alexander wanted to get out of there as quickly as he could. Something is wrong – that's all that kept replaying in his mind now. Getting away from this young woman was his only desire and concern.

Alexander didn't even remember his injury. He tried to run off, gritting through the severe pain in his leg shooting through his body like red-hot skewers. He couldn't move nearly as quickly as he wanted. He staggered a bit, his adrenaline not able to overcome his pain enough to keep him going much further.

The girl grabbed Alex's arm. For a brief moment he thought she was trying to help him, to keep him from falling. He was waiting to next hear her say something for the first time, to laugh and tell him that it had all been a joke she and her friends were playing. Then she tugged sharply on his arm, throwing him to the floor.

Alex fell to the floor sharply, striking his head on the concrete basement floor. Before he can even attempt to get back up, she sits on his chest, her right knee pinning his injured left arm down, her left hand holding down his right arm.

Looking straight forward, up at the basement's ceiling, the girl's face filled his field of vision. Her glowing red eyes were wide, almost as if she were upset or offended that he tried to run away a moment ago. But as she stared down at him, her eyes narrowed. He could see her lips forming a small smile. The small amount of light from the small basement window only partially illuminated her figure, creating an eerie contrast of lighting.

Alex continued to struggle to free himself. He couldn't tell if she was just that strong, or that he was just that weak, but he couldn't seem to manage to budge her at all. She contorted her body to keep him pinned as she brought her head down towards him. He kept questioning in his head what she was thinking, why was she so desperately forcing him down without speaking a word?

It struck him that he hadn't said anything either. He tried to open his mouth to say something. But his voice didn't come out. He couldn't remember hurting his throat at all, and even with her on his chest he didn't feel much weight, let alone so much that it would stop him from speaking.

Out of options, Alexander could only wait to see what would happen. He was still thinking that this would all be some bad prank, someone's stupid idea of a joke.

The girl's eyes soon disappeared, her head too low to his for him to see her face anymore. The next thing he felt was an intense pain in his shoulder. It felt like six scalding hot skewers were driven right into his shoulder, just beside his neck. The pain was so intense it immediately overcame all of the pain in his head, his arm, and his leg from his injuries earlier. It felt like a moment in hell.


	3. Chapter 2 - The Crimson Princess and

**Chapter 2: The Crimson Princess and Her Enslaved Prince**

There is a strange credulity when it comes to memory loss. In the abstract circumstance, no one likes memory loss. There are few things as frightening to most people as realizing that you no longer remember the faces of those around you, that you don't remember the names and faces of your family, that you don't even remember your own name or details about your past.

Even so, most people have at least one time in their life where they wish they could forget something. Something they heard, an embarrassing moment, a stupid argument… we often stumble into events of our lives that we sometimes wish we could wipe from our memory as easily as one can wipe a computer hard drive.

Life, however, rarely works with such credulity. Life is anything but innocent, so we usually are not afforded such convenient escapes. Those memories we don't want will stick with us, and the things we wish we could remember will slip through the sieve of our minds; that's just how it goes.

Alexander woke up laying in a bed he didn't know. As he opened his eyes he found himself staring straight up at a white paneled ceiling. The white sheets of the bed were pulled up to his shoulders.

He tried to sit up, immediately realizing his movement was restricted. His left arm had an IV drip hooked into it. That shocked him a little. On his right wrist was a set of handcuffs, locking him to his bed. That shocked him more.

Looking around, seeing the white side table with a pitcher of water and an empty glass sitting there, a big window with its curtains drawn, Alex realized this had to be a hospital. The IV drip was proof enough of that. What he couldn't understand was the reason he was being handcuffed to the bed. Almost as if on cue, the door to this single bed room opened. Two people entered, one in a pink nurse's uniform and one in with a white coat.

"Good afternoon young man. You gave us a scare, but it's good to see you awake," the doctor said jovially. The nurse was holding a clipboard and looking at a machine beside the head of Alex's bed.

"This is a hospital?" Alex asked to confirm, unexpectedly finding some difficulty speaking.

"That's right. I'm Dr. Nanjo. Let me ask you a few questions, okay?" the doctor said, approaching Alex and pulling out a penlight from his breast pocket.

"R-right," Alex agreed.

"Do you remember your name?" Dr. Nanjo asked. He took his left thumb and index finger and opened Alex's right eye wide, shining the pen light in it, waving it back and forward. He repeated the process in Alex's left eye.

"Of course. It's Alexander Kuroshiki,"

"Alright, good, good. And how old are you?" Dr. Nanjo asked, receiving the clipboard from the nurse.

"I'm fifteen. My birthday is June sixth,"

"Excellent. Now then, can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

"Last thing…" Alex paused a moment. When he woke up he hadn't quite gotten around to that question for himself. Thinking about it now was making his head hurt a little, but he tried to ignore it. "I was unpacking stuff at home… but it got late, so I went to the store to buy something for dinner… but I can't remember what came after that,"

"That's alright, no need to worry,"

"Why am I in the hospital? And why am I handcuffed to this bed?"

"The handcuffs were not our choice. It seems the authorities are interested in talking to you and don't want you going off anywhere before they get the chance,"

"The authorities? Why?"

"I can't really say. But I can tell you this much, you came to us in pretty rough shape,"

"What happened to me?"

"From what we understand you were found in an empty lot just lying on the ground. You were brought in with an extremely severe case of anemia and you had a real nasty looking wound on your neck about your shoulder,"

"Anemia? I've never had anemia before,"

"Well, you had dangerously little blood in your body. To be honest you're lucky to be alive, though we can't seem to figure out how you had so little blood in your body. We didn't find any trauma significant enough to warrant such blood loss. I'd otherwise be impressed with you, Mr. Kuroshiki. You are in quite impressive health aside from the lack of blood. Perhaps that is what allowed you to survive. You say you went to the store for dinner? Do you remember the last time you ate?"

"I think… it was that morning; breakfast,"

"Hmm… and you ate normally the day before?"

"Yes,"

"I see. That likely rules out lack of food as a cause of your anemia. There's little chance it will show anything, but just to be safe we're conducting a blood test to be sure you don't have cancer or some other disease that may be effecting your normal production of blood,"

"Cancer!?" Alex reacted with an attempted shout.

"Don't worry, don't worry," Dr. Nanjo urged with a chortle. "It's just a precaution. You've already been responding to conventional treatment for anemia, and we haven't seen anything in our prior tests, so it's unlikely you have anything like that at all. But since we can't seem to pinpoint the source of your anemia, we want to make sure we try everything to resolve that question,"

"I see,"

"For now, just focus on getting better. Part of that will be making sure you get a proper meal. I'll have a nurse deliver a meal for you soon," Dr. Nanjo said as he started back out the room with the nurse.

"Thank you doctor,"

"Not a problem. Just get some rest for now,"

"I will,"

Dr. Nanjo and the nurse cheerfully waved to Alex on their way out, closing the door behind them. He stopped the nurse only a couple feet down the hall, apparently just wanting to move out of the immediate vicinity of the door to Alex's room.

"So, what do they look like?"

"All of his numbers are normal, doctor. Blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and cholesterol levels are all at the ideal range for a male of his age and weight. His blood volume level is also within ideal parameters. The iron replacement treatment seems to have been effective in restoring the blood levels,"

"Alright. Call the Agency; they wanted to know when Mr. Kuroshiki woke up. We'll continue with administering the sedative this evening, before he starts convulsing again,"

"Yes, doctor,"

Alex didn't much feel like sleeping now that he was awake. He was bored, sitting in a white room with nothing to look at. That boredom came from a mix of wooziness and confusion. He wanted to think, but he couldn't get his thoughts to process easily. He felt it was whatever medicine they were giving him.

He was told that the authorities wanted to see him, but as far as he could recall he hadn't done anything wrong. The only explanation he could reason was that he was thought of as a witness to something. That seemed reasonable he thought. He didn't have any memories of what happened after leaving the store, so perhaps he saw something and was attacked, he thought. Even so, that didn't explain why the police would have had to handcuff him to the bed as if he were a flight risk. He could only think then that he was being considered a culprit.

That was obviously very problematic. Alex felt certainly that something happened after he left the store, but he couldn't quite remember what. That likely wasn't to go over particularly well with the police.

Then there was his own health. He really hadn't thought it that big of a deal to have missed lunch, certainly not enough that he'd collapse on the street. He never thought of himself so fragile a person that he could be felled by missing a single meal, and he couldn't think of any time he was said to have anemia to say that this was a common thing with him. It made the very idea that the doctors were testing him for cancer now that much more concerning since whatever happened had to have been a symptom of something that started rather suddenly.

Alexander mulled these things over in his head, then put them aside in finding little utility in overly examining it. Then he started thinking about it again, until telling himself to stop it.

He repeated this process a few times before finally, out of the boredom of having nothing else to do, and the influence of his medication, fell asleep again.

When Alex next awoke, it was to someone sitting in a folding chair by the window. It took Alex a couple seconds for him to remember that he was in a hospital room. The person was sitting in a three-piece suit, reading through some paperwork in a file folder. He didn't seem to take immediate notice of Alex moving about as Alex tried to sit himself up properly.

"Who are you?" Alex asked first, the man seeming to be too lost in reading to acknowledge him first.

"Ah, you're awake Mr. Kuroshiki. The hospital told me you'd awoken, but by the time I arrived you were already asleep. I wanted to make sure I was here when you woke up, but it seems I got too caught up in my reading. How are you feeling, Mr. Kuroshiki?"

"Confused, mostly. Are you with the police?"

"No, not quite. My name is Kazma. I work for the Department of Exotic Species Mitigation. Are you familiar with us?"

"I've heard the name before. My cousin mentioned it once too, but I don't really know anything about what you do,"

"That's perfectly alright, since it's our intention that people know as little about our work as possible,"

"What does someone from a national agency want with me?"

"We were the ones who found you, Mr. Kuroshiki. You were in a very serious state at the time,"

"Do you know what happened to me?" Alex asked in earnest, relieved that he might get an explanation.

"We're still conducting the investigation, so we can't say for certain, but it appears you came into contact with an exotic species,"

"I was poisoned? Is that what caused my anemia?"

"I don't know that you can simply call it a poisoning, but we'll get to that in a little bit. There are other matters of importance we have to discuss right now," the man said with a smile. Alex felt suspicious of this man, and didn't much appreciate that he seemed to imply Alex's concern over what he went through was of little importance.

"I did want to ask why I'm handcuffed to my bed. The doctor said you people did it,"

"Yes. It's a safety measure for your protection. We weren't entirely certain the type of Exa you encountered, so we had to limit your contact with others and prevent you from moving about,"

"Exa?"

"Ah, sorry about that. You see, we term certain types of exotic species Exas. It's not a term you're likely to hear in public. We only use it at the office,"

"Exa… something like exotic animal right?"

"That's good. Now then, we took the liberty of contacting your parents and they've agreed to place you under our care for the time being. We told them there was nothing they needed to worry about, that there was no need for them to rush to your side. It'd put them at ease if you could talk to them,"

While Kazma was speaking a nurse came in with a food cart to drop off Alex's meal. It was the meal that had been promised Alex when he last woke up. He hadn't really had any thoughts about food before, but now that it was being presented to him his stomach felt very empty.

Kazma's phone rang. As he looked at who was calling he got up to answer as he left the room. Alex took the time to start filling his stomach. He thought Kazma would come back in only a minute or so, but he instead took quite a while. Alex had almost completely finished his meal, a creamy and rich soup with bits of beef and broccoli in it, by the time Kazma returned.

"Ah, you're finished, that's good. I was hoping we could talk a little more,"

"Right," Alex agreed, not close to being done with asking this guy about what happened.

"So then, let's see… ah, right, the Exa you encountered. Here's a few pictures the investigation team took at the scene when we found you," he said, placing the about a dozen photos in front of Alex on the bed.

"Why do I need to…?" Alex started to ask as he looked through the photos.

He partly answered the question himself, thinking this must have been a strategy for triggering his memories. But they depicted a rather obscure scene as far as his memories went. From best he could tell it was some sort of aftermath of a military engagement. As far as he could tell it had nothing to do with him at all, unless he was being accused of fighting in some foreign war.

The last picture was familiar. It was of the old house, his only memory tying him to this city. But for some reason as he looked at it he felt a building pain. It was the same pain he felt before when he first woke up in this hospital room and tried to recall what happened to him.

"Some of these pictures were taken three days ago, the morning after we found you," Kazma shared.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Alex asked dismissively, putting aside the pictures. "The only picture I can say I recognize is that old house. What's the point of showing me all those other pictures? And what do you mean three days ago?"

"Like I said, these pictures were all from the scene where you were found by us at the Agency. We were tracking a special Exa. You were found lying down in an empty lot relatively close to the house you're referring to. At about the location of the house several Exas were fighting, and they caused the damage you see there in those photos.

"As for you, Mr. Kuroshiki, you were unconscious. Despite having a heartbeat, it was like running a water pump without enough water,"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Dr. Nanjo should've told you that you had severe anemia, right? Did he mention how severe?"

"Not exactly; only that they couldn't find the cause. They're checking to make sure I don't have cancer,"

"Yes, I suppose for a medical professional in this age that would be the logical recourse. You see, Mr. Kuroshiki, if not that you are indeed alive, you were missing an amount of blood that would usually result in death,"

"I know what anemia is," Alex responded, thinking Kazma was playing word games with him.

"You misunderstand. On average a human has roughly five liters of blood in their body. Anemia results from not having enough to keep the body active and functioning at minimum capacity. Death can result from having lost only one third of that five liters; in other words losing about one and two-thirds liters. When we found you, you had less than that actually in your body. You only had a little more than one liter of blood in your body, total,"

"That's insane," Alexander dismissed.

"You don't seem all too worried,"

"Because I'm not buying your story," Alex calmly refuted. "The doctor himself said so; I only had some injury on my neck. I'm here alive. There's no way I could have bled out that much from just a small injury on my neck, let alone be alive after losing that much blood,"

"That's precisely the problem. By all rights no one should be able to survive losing that much blood outside of a hospital setting, yet there you were on the ground with barely a scratch on you except for six little holes in your neck, and no blood on your clothes at all. It makes for quite a mystery, don't you think?"

"Sorry, I'm not really interested in fairytales right now,"

"Hah ha… that so. Well then, you rest up Mr. Kuroshiki. I'll be back tomorrow to go over some more things with you," Kazma said as he gathered the pictures back up and started for the door.

"What about these handcuffs?" Alex asked, more annoyed to have them on his wrist than anything else.

"Sorry about that, but you'll need to keep them on a little longer,"

"Great," Alex sarcastically bemoaned, sighing heavily.

Kazma walked out the door and closed it behind him. Alex was feeling very annoyed. He thought that he was being made a fool out of by Kazma. This nonsense about losing nearly all the blood in his body and being found lying on the ground… it didn't make any sense. For all the seriousness that he found Kazma trying to stress, between the ludicrous nature of the story and the glib way Kazma told the story, Alexander didn't find much reason to pay the tale much mind. He couldn't even figure out why the Exotic Species Mitigation Department was interested in him in the first place. Was he poisoned by some rare animal or something?

Despite not wanting to pay Kazma's story much attention, Alex did start to think back to what he heard from Dr. Nanjo. He did recall the doctor saying he was lucky to be alive and that he was found with a dangerously low blood volume. Even so, one doesn't have to be a medical doctor to know that you can't survive losing so much blood from your system. Some people get faint from a nosebleed, just to show how fragile the human body is and how dependent it is on the level of blood in the system. As Kazma said, losing as much as a third can cause death. How could someone lose four fifths of their blood and not be in a morgue?

Alex put aside thinking any more about Kazma's story. He looked back at the meal he was brought by the nurse. All that was left was a pudding cup as a dessert. The meal in all didn't taste that spectacular, but Alex was feeling hungry, so he was hoping he might be able to request another meal.

Kazma was just finishing up another phone call as he was exiting the hospital. Another gentleman was standing outside, apparently having been waiting for him. This second man bowed when Kazma came out.

"Well, what does Crimson's envoy want with me?" Kazma asked, not hiding the contempt he apparently held for this man.

"My master is simply paying a visit tonight," the man replied casually.

"What!?" Kazma asked, angry and startled.

"My master conceded to your terms, as cumbersome as they may be. This is nothing more than verification of the agreement. A place is being prepared for him as we speak. I hope things will be in order soon,"

"Lest you forget, the Agency doesn't exist for your "master's" benefit,"

"But you do exist at my master's will," the man levied that parting shot as he walked away. Kazma was clearly upset, but held his tongue and went along his way.

Alex's evening was as dull as one could expect for a hospital patient. He was able to get the second dinner that he wanted. He hadn't quite realized it until Kazma left that it was in fact evening. He knew it was afternoon when he woke up the first time, but he didn't realize he had drifted back off to sleep for so long.

After the meal a nurse came in to see Alexander just to check on him. She apologized to him that there wasn't a television in his room so he could entertain himself, noting that he was unconscious for so long they didn't already have one available for this room. She was surprised that he didn't know already how long he'd been in there. She didn't dare tell him that the nursing staff was joking that he must be a very pure boy who saw a very beautiful woman because they never heard of someone being hospitalized for three days because of a simple nosebleed. She did, however, convey to him the fact that he'd been in this hospital room for three days already.

That wasn't particularly welcome news for Alexander. He wasn't about to start complaining about ridiculous things like missing school or his favorite show on television. In fact, the news hit him fairly flatly. He wasn't sure what to think. In all it felt like a surreal aside to the fact that he was in the hospital to begin with.

He had to admit now that there was at least some reality to the story he was told by Kazma, but Alexander wasn't ready to give all the way in to believing he was somehow nearly completely devoid of blood and managed to survive. Alex didn't know enough about medicine to come up with his own alternate theory, but even so he wasn't going to completely forsake thinking for the first crazy explanation levied his way.

Alex's tenure was more or less confirmed when he was brought a newspaper and some magazines to read. The newspaper certainly had a date on it three days removed from the last day he remembered. It was an easy day to remember since it was the first day of the school trimester. And at least one of the magazines he knew to be one that released on Wednesdays. It too was one that he was all but certain came out since that first day of school.

Nevertheless, that didn't change much else. Alexander decided he would listen with a little more consideration to what Kazma had to say when he came back tomorrow. He didn't see much utility in thinking too hard about it when he would get some more answers in a day's time. He did worry a little, however, about his parents and his girlfriend. Kazma did say he spoke with Alex's parents and reassured them of Alex's well-being. At this point Alex was fine with that. He did feel relatively okay, save for a headache that was developing, so he didn't really think it made much sense right now for his parents to fly all the way from the United States just now.

He was more worried about his girlfriend. He was planning to call her that night after dinner, but if he apparently never made it through dinner, then he must not have spoken with her in five days or so at this point. He wasn't exceptionally worried, since he was sure that she would have likely spoken to his parents by now, but he still would've like to talk to her himself.

Alexander passed the time through his evening by reading the newspaper and the magazines. However, as the evening wore on, Alex found himself in increasing pain. His headache had progressively gotten worse, and now his entire body felt like it was in the throes of some infection or violent allergic reaction. His evening ended with him being given so much sedative for the pain that he practically blacked out.

When morning came Alex's condition was only slightly improved from the night before. He wasn't in pain as much as his body felt stiff. His joints felt more like rusty hinges. More of a nuisance, his headache, though less than it was before, was still quite active.

He made it through breakfast and partway through morning before things started going downhill again. The pain came back, more intense than before. He started to have convulsions. When he was given the sedatives it took time to kick in. When it started to work his headache wouldn't go away, and in some regards was made worse as he had a hard time focusing – as if he were swimming in pool of molasses. Alex felt as though he had this feeling before, but his head was such a jumble that he couldn't really tell.

By afternoon the pain had subsided considerably. His headache too had relented some, though he still could feel a bit of throbbing. He was glad enough the strange feeling in his head was gone and he could seem to think a little straighter. He ate his lunch, although not feeling all that hungry. He tried to relax through the early afternoon, recognizing that despite his confidence in his recovery the day before he was clearly not okay. That only made him wonder more about what happened to him to cause all this.

It was around mid-afternoon when Kazma showed up again. Alex's condition was still okay then. He hadn't had any convulsions in hours, his headaches hadn't gotten any worse, and overall he wasn't in as much pain as that morning.

"Seems you've been in quite a ways this morning, Mr. Kuroshiki," Kazma said in that aloofly jovial way that Alex was coming to hate.

"What kinda poisonous animal did I run into," Alex brashly questioned. "I've never heard of even a poisonous spider causing someone to go through all this,"

"You'll be happy to know that it was most certainly not a spider that has rendered you in this state,"

"Then what was it?"

"We'll get to that in a moment. First, I should inform you that what you're suffering from are withdrawal symptoms,"

"Now you're accusing me of taking drugs? Look, I'm not…"

"No, Mr. Kuroshiki. Drug offenses are not part of my department's duties. Here, take a look at this picture," Kazma said as he went to his folder and pulled out a five by eight print.

"Another picture?" Alex sighed.

Alex looked at the picture, expecting it to be similar to the ones from the day before. But this one was much different, and appropriately generated a reaction that was much different.

In the photo was a young woman. It was difficult to tell how tall she was, but in the picture she looked to be only a teenager, possibly younger than Alex himself. She was in a formal ball gown, like the ones worn in Great Britain by courtesans a long time ago. It had a bunch of frills and the skirt belled out from the hip. Her hair was a light color, done up in a bun, but due to the aged coloring of the picture, if there, everything had a brownish hue to it. The young woman had a stoic expression, as if weary of whatever she was doing when this picture was taken, or at even having her picture taken. The photo itself was old, the wearing around the edges and the discoloration of the photo paper saying it had to be at least forty or fifty years old.

But it was the girl in the picture that caught Alex's attention. He felt strongly that he had seen her somewhere before, possibly even knew her. That didn't make a ton of sense to him, though, since judging by the age of the photo she must be in her fifties of sixties by now. To the best of his recollection, Alex didn't know any fifty or sixty year olds – even his parents weren't that old.

"Is this the owner of that house?" Alex asked, reasoning that must have been it. "Don't you have any more recent pictures of her?"

"Unfortunately this was the last photograph taken of her that we have. She disappeared for some time you see, and though we did run into her about fifteen years ago, we were unable to get a picture of her then. You do remember her then?"

"Not really. She does look kinda familiar, but I can't really say I recognize her to that extent. I must've seen her when I was living in town as a kid, maybe that's why she seems familiar,"

"Yes, we thought that might be the case,"

"But I heard that place was abandoned for years, even before I was born,"

"That's not precisely the case. I won't bore you with the legal details, but thank you for confirming our suspicions,"

"Are you gonna explain what this has to do with what happened to me?"

"My, aren't you the impatient one? Well, I suppose there isn't much time to skirt around the issue. The figure in the photo here currently goes by the name Inori Priscilla Testarossa Arsene Yukina. This is the primary Exa you encountered which caused your condition,"

"Look," Alex sighed, immediately thinking this was all ridiculous. "I'm really not in the mood for this. It's a little much, don't you think, to start calling people exotic animals?"

"People? No, she is no person; far from it. She's merely a monster in the form of a human," Kazma stated sternly, as serious as Alex had seen him in the very brief time he'd known this man.

"What exactly are you saying? Is she a serial killer or something?"

"That's probably a good way to think of it – she's nothing but a monster. She's probably killed dozens, and you have been another of her victims,"

"Thi… this doesn't…" Alex was having a tough time coming to terms with what Kazma was saying.

"You can't remember her right now, but you will eventually. The photo is from 1903. Even so, it is what she looks like today,"

"That…" Kazma's statement sort of jolted Alex back to reality. "You've gotta be kidding. I've never heard of a serial killer who goes around poisoning people on the streets. And 1903? She'd be at least a hundred and twenty by now based on this picture!"

"We believe she is actually much older than that. Some indications suggest she may be several hundred years old,"

"Sev… several hundred!? Are you people insane? This is all some stupid joke, isn't it!? I'm part of some game. Well I've had enough of it,"

"This is no game Mr. Kuroshiki. Whether you like it or not, you are currently a crucial linchpin in the fate of very many people. Your very own life is in danger should you not take this seriously,"

"Take what seriously? Your crazy story about a serial killer whose several hundred years old, looks like a little a girl in her teens, and kills people with some weird poison that causes anemia? The entire thing's completely stupid!"

"Inori is one of the last of her breed. She's a vampire. What you may think is a cute young woman is a bloodthirsty monster. On Monday night, as you were returning to your home from the store, you passed by that residence, the old house of the picture yesterday. A number of ghouls manifested, which was what the Agency deployed to address. However it seems that you were there and encountered Inori. The wound on your neck, the six puncture marks in your neck near to your shoulder, are evidence that she bit you. Your state of near total blood loss is proof that she fed on you.

"When we arrived on the scene, you were found in an empty lot. Meanwhile, Inori was destroying the ghouls that were trying to approach you. Inori has demanded that we hand you over to her by tomorrow. If we fail to do so, it could very negatively impact the treaty we hold between us and her family,"

"I don't understand what the hell is going on," Alex bemoaned, feeling as though he was losing his mind.

"Unfortunately as I said, there isn't much time. Irrespective of what that vampire wants, your withdrawal symptoms are something only she can handle currently,"

"Only she can handle? I thought you said it's her fault this happened?"

"Yes, however just as she is the one who caused your situation, she is the only one who can do anything for you,"

"Can't you just get the cure back from her?"

"There is no cure, only treatment of the symptoms. And she is the only one who can administer your treatment,"

"I really don't understand…"

"Your headaches, your body aches, are all symptoms of your withdrawal. The bite of a vampire is the only way to cause your symptoms to recede. The alternative is to endure your symptoms as they get worse. For now it is intermittent headaches and pains all over your body, and occasional seizures. Eventually these will become persistent, until your body can no longer take it, shuts down, and you die,"

"This can't be happening. This… this is like some horrible movie. There's no way… they're extinct I mean. They're all supposed to be dead. They were all wiped out a long time ago,"

"It doesn't really matter what you think reality is supposed to be. What's before you is what actual reality is at this moment. You can deny it if you want, but that tends to end badly for the person who chooses to do so,"

"Sorry I can't be so stoic as to accept that over a hundred and fifty years of history I've been taught essentially is nothing but a pile of crap,"

"Well, the majority of history textbooks are full of crap, so sorry for bursting that bubble for you,"

"I'm not getting much of a sympathy vibe here,"

"What's your decision, Mr. Kuroshiki? Submit to the vampire, or die quietly in this hospital,"

"I rather like a choice that doesn't involve me either being eaten or dying,"

"Unfortunately fate has yet to provide an answer for you,"

"I think I deserve a full explanation,"

"Hmm… you're a bit more intelligent than I gave you credit for. I don't think there's a problem in telling you, since your life is essentially over either way at this point," Alex was peeved by Kazma's way of handling this, but he cared more right now about answers than he did about personality.

"Let's see now…" Kazma pondered aloud, still apparently trying to reason his starting point. "The war between humanity and monsters was not false. It was a very difficult and brutal episode in history. However, the end of that conflict wasn't the death of all monsters. Regrettably, humanity lacked the capacity to achieve that end. Instead, a truce was reached. It's something of a non-aggression pact.

"The continued existence of monsters is kept a state secret around the world. We don't attack them, and they don't attack humans. Those who indiscriminately violate this charter are dealt with and this cheap peace is maintained. Since we can't go around referring to monsters in public documents for funding and what not, we use the term Exa. Everyone assumes it refers to invasive species of normal animals, so everything works out well.

"However, there are incidents like yours from time to time, where humans and monsters cross paths. To keep humanity from panicking, the human involved is usually silenced, and this happy little world keeps moving forward,"

"Silenced? You mean you kill them,"

"Not precisely. Believe it or not the situation is often a romance, so we simply keep an eye on them to make sure they don't go off and blab to anyone they're screwing around with a monster. In other situations the individual is killed by a monster, we blame it on a wild animal or some wanted criminal to satisfy the family. Occasionally we pay off the person; you'd be surprised how quickly some people will bend to your request once you promise them money. We've jailed some for stealing state secrets, and, as you suggested, we do kill sometimes,"

"You're saying that's my fate right now; do as you say or you'll kill me,"

"We don't really have to. As I've said, your condition is such that you'll either die or be forced to obey our rules. Inori is sufficiently influential that the Agency has several agreements with her specifically. She has used that influence to demand that we hand you over to her. We've bought time by suggesting that you are resisting, and that in deference to your will we have begun negotiations. By all means, you're welcome to ignore Inori's request for you. I only warn that we lack any means of curing your condition, so you would be signing your own death certificate by electing to stay here.

"If you acquiesce to Inori's demand, she very well may save you, but per the agreement your contact with others, including your loved ones, will be somewhat limited. We'll be keeping tabs on you to make sure you don't tell others about the existence of monsters. As we understand it she doesn't have a cure either, so your treatment under her will last for some time,"

"In other words, I die or become a caged bird," Alex sighed.

"At the very least we will try to find you a cure, but in all honesty the prospects of that are very, very slim. The fact that Inori herself suggests there is no cure, even with what bias she might hold, it diminishes any likelihood that there really is any cure. Your case is special, which is part of the problem,"

"You keep saying my case is special. Well, what's so special about it?"

"For one, vampires don't tend to leave victims who can make decisions for themselves. They either become a type of ghoul, or the human is drained of so much blood they die. You should have died from all the blood you apparently lost to her, but you managed to survive. And she hasn't made you her puppet, but instead allowed you to be taken away to be treated in this hospital, and then demanded that we hand you back to her.

"Second, you were protected. Vampires only view humans as food. Even if they let them survive it's only to keep as lapdogs for the sake of securing more food. They certainly don't care enough about them to secure their safety. Yet, after having just awoken from her sleep and feeding on you until you were near death, she had the presence of mind to move you to a safe location while she slaughtered her enemy. That isn't normal for vampires at all, especially a noble like Inori. I doubt it's a matter of her simply growing kinder in all her years of life. The only explanation then is that it has something specifically to do with you,"

"But I don't even remember her. You say she bit me the other night, so I can only guess that's the reason I thought she looked familiar. How could there be anything between us that could explain all this?"

"It's only a theory for now. We don't know for certain. But vampires don't change,"

"This is all too ridiculous. I can't believe any of this…"

"Not to belabor the point, but there isn't much time. It will be difficult to have Inori wait for very long, and your own condition doesn't offer much time to think,"

"You say that like there's even much choice. I either go to this vampire, or I die a slow and painful death. I'm not suicidal, so I don't see much alternatives here,"

"I'm sure Inori will be pleased to hear that,"

"I'm not looking to please her. I'm just asking that you do something about finding me a cure,"

"We already have people working on it,"

"So… when do I leave this place and start living in my cage?"

"You should look to the positive – it will be a very luxurious cage,"

"A gilded cage is still a cage. Doesn't much matter what the cage looks like," Alex sighed glumly, tossing himself backwards into the bed and staring up at the ceiling.

"We'll begin the official transfer paperwork with your school right away. We've already had all your belongings packed in anticipation of your decision,"

"Wait, what? I have to switch schools? And you packed up all my stuff? You couldn't wait?"

"Ah, I did forget to mention all that, didn't I?" Kazma returned to his more aloof tone. "There's a special school you'll be going to. I'm sure you've heard of it – Akumano Academy?"

"No," Alex answered flatly.

"I see, well, I assure you it's quite the prestigious institution; very exclusive. In fact, you can only get in based on recommendation. Even then you need to carry a certain heritage to get in,"

"It's a school for monsters, isn't it?" Alex said dryly, still staring up at the ceiling.

"Heh?" Kazma asked as though he was surprised by Alex's response.

"It's a school for monsters. All you've been talking about is how history was faked, how monsters exist under our noses, how I was attacked by monsters… it's pretty obvious that you're not about to dump me in another school for the hell of it. In other words, it's a school for monsters,"

"It ruins all the fun if you're so matter-of-fact about it all,"

"Sorry I can't be as chipper as you are about all this,"

"Well, I'm sure you'll get used to it soon enough. Humanity's strength is in its ability to adapt,"

"I bet you use that stupid line on everyone you get stuck in situations like this," Alex thought to himself.

"As I've said a number of times already, time is of the essence for you, so we'll have you discharged this evening if that is fine with you. You'll go directly to the dorms to get yourself settled in. Inori will be there to greet you. You'll have a few days to settle in while the transfer paperwork is completed before you can return to your wonderful teenage life as a student,"

"Some life; a terminally ill patient living in a government assigned cage, surrounded by creatures that're supposed to be extinct, relying on one that eats people for dinner to somehow keep me alive until a cure,"

"That's the size of it,"


End file.
